Transforming your mind from the inside out, Overcoming fear that made you doubt…

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I have to start today’s blog entry by bragging on Rae. I always love her and am proud of her. I think she is a magnificent woman and literally can do anything she wants. Today, I am pointedly proud of her.

Some of you may know that Rae plays the piano. She plays better than she admits to herself. However she has always been hesitant to play in public or to be an accompanist. We joked, when we decided to move to India, that she would probably be called to be the Branch pianist. Well that hasn’t happened. When we first came, the Branch was using a thumb drive with 50-60 hymns on it. More recently, I downloaded all of the hymns onto my iPhone and we have been using that as accompaniment.

Over the past few weeks, Rae has had a few times where she has had the opportunity to practice playing hymns on the organ in the Chapel. Today on the way to church she said, she could play prelude if we wanted. It turns out she not only played prelude and postlude but also played for the three hymns we sang during Church. This wasn’t just playing for a few young women or in Seminary. We had over 100 people in Sacrament Meeting today, which in our small building is a full house. Rae did great. As I said, I am quite proud of her.

I took off Monday and Tuesday and with Wednesday being New Year’s Day, I had five days off of work. We talked about going somewhere, say to see the Taj Mahal or to Jaipur, but chose instead to stay in town and do a few touristy things here. We talked in last week’s entry about visiting the furniture restoration stalls, so I will start with our Monday excursion to Humayun’s Tomb.

Humayun's tomb is the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun. The tomb was built in the late 1500’s and it was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent. The tomb was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993 and since then has undergone extensive restoration work. Besides the main tomb enclosure of Humayun, several smaller monuments dot the pathway leading up to it, including the tomb complex of Isa Khan Niyazi, an Afghan who fought against the Mughals. The complex encompasses the main tomb of the Emperor Humayun and 160 members of his family and key members of his court (their tombs were added one by one as they died over time; it wasn’t that they were all killed to accompany the Emperor). This final tomb was actually designed by the man himself before he died. I must say that’s a good way to make sure you have an amazing burial ground.

The tomb is surround by a walled complex with gates in each of the four cardinal directions and beautiful irrigated gardens. The gardens were typical of the style found in Persia, called charbagh, or four section, garden. Charbagh gardens are symmetrical quadrants separated by irrigation channels. They are typical of Persian gardens, but never seen before in India. The features at Humayun’s tomb set a precedent for subsequent Mughal architecture including the Taj Mahal. The total Tomb complex was amazing. I mentioned that it has been restored. It took hundreds of people over a decade using traditional methods and materials taken from the original quarries. Now it looks as much like it did originally as the experts can conceive. It was also interesting to me there were essentially no access restrictions. We could pretty much go where we wanted.

We thought we might spend a couple of hours there but ended up staying for almost four. In my mind it is now at the top of list for our visitors to go see (That’s a hint, ya’ll). I hope this isn’t just ABT (see last week’s entry if you don’t know that acronym). But here are a few of the literally hundreds of pictures we took at Humayun’s tomb.

One last thing before I pass the baton to Rae. As we were walking into Humayun’s Tomb, we came across our first snake charmer. A man was playing a flute and playing with two cobras in baskets. He offered to lets us pet the cobras, an offer which we quickly declined. Still, Rae got pretty close and we got the following pictures.

Well, that’s it for me. Here’s Rae.

Hi ya’ll,

Tuesday we decided to go see India Gate and a few of the governmental sites that are around that area.  India Gate is much like the Arc de Triomph in Paris, except it is in a mall area more like the National Mall in Washington DC. We have driven by India gate several times, but never actually walked up to it and had the “up close and personal” experience.

The “up close and personal” experience was in fact an experience.  We were bombarded from all sides for a wide range of services and items that we undoubtedly needed.  First were the many opportunities to pay someone to take our picture in front of the Gate, next were the many chances to take “just two minutes” to have a henna tattoo, (something that I will do at some point but not then).  There were also offers to buy flying helicopter type toys.  I really loved the part when they would grab the propeller of a new packaged one and bend it around to show us that it wasn’t even broken.  There were also people selling balloons, other toys, and a variety of bracelets, earrings and assorted jewelry.  Each person knowing that we really did need their items and if we’d just let them explain why, then we’d understand and undoubtedly buy everything they had to offer. Shaking your head, waving them off and continually saying nay, nay has no meaning.

Across the street from India Gate is a long road, (think Washington mall and the Washington monument) and at the end of that road is the President’s House.  On each side of that road and before you get to the President’s House are two identical Secretariat buildings.  Secretariat 1 on one side and a duplicate building, Secretariat 2 on the opposite side. Parliament is an even larger circular building visible off to the right.

The walk from the Gate to the President’s House is rather long, but we had sent our driver to park somewhere and wait for us to finish our adventure.  They had closed off the road and so cars were not allowed to drive down there.  Somehow though, autos (tuk tuks) and rickshaws were allowed.  As we were making that walk we were offered many auto and rickshaw rides.  At one point one of those drivers asked us to give him just a minute so he could explain that he would drive us to those sights, stop for us to take pictures and return us where we needed and only charge us 50 rupees (80 cents), and not 1 rupee more.  After realizing that it was quite a walk we decided to take him up on his offer, (my first auto ride since arriving here), while wondering when the BUT would come to play.  He did speak English quite well and did share information about some of the things we were seeing. He did stop for us to take the wanted pictures and kept assuring us that we were not going to pay more than 50 rupees.  Having seen our intended sights, we were headed back to where we would connect with Robinson, our driver.  BUT, as we headed back he told us he’d really like to show us some good shops in the area and a couple of other sights, and it would not cost any more rupees.

Our next adventure began with a couple of other photo ops.  One a gold domed Sikh temple and the other a Hindu temple.  After that we were off to the shopping areas.  He explained to us that if he brought us to these areas they would give him a gift.  We didn’t need to buy anything but just look to see if there was anything of interest.  The first place was quite nice and clearly catered to the expat and tourist community (meaning inflated prices).  There really were some beautiful items and I learned about some rugs that I’d be interested in.  They are made of pashmina and are done in Kashmir tribal patterns.  They are more supple than the more traditional silk,wool or cotton rugs and the colors are more vibrant. Anyway, we both found them beautiful and something that we will keep our eye out for, at a more reasonable price. This place had everything from art, clothing. jewelry, sculptures, blankets, to you name it. 

After making it out of there and not buying anything our driver told us that they were overpriced and that he knew of a shop that had much better prices.  We told him that we really needed to go back but he could drive us past the place, (that was of course on the way) and we’d run in and get a card from them so we could come back later.  He assured us that if we only took 5 minutes to look around then we’d be able to remember them better in the future and our card would mean more.  So, we took 5 minutes and went in.  We found a couple of things we were interested in, and will probably go back at some point. 

It is clear that these drivers have worked out a deal with these merchants and get some sort of gift, kick back or compensations for dragging us poor confused visitors into their establishments.   I know I sound a bit cynical, and I probably am a bit, but having said that, I found these side trips to be interesting, educational and something I’d never find on my own. 

Finally, we really were headed back to meet up with our driver.  As we were nearly to our destination we were bracing ourselves for the BUT, but when we arrived he did in fact just ask for 50 rupees, SHOCK.  We did give him 100 rupees, and felt that we got a good deal.  As I was telling a friend about our adventure she explained that they too had had a similar experience and she was shocked to hear our conclusion, because their similar experience had had a BUT and they spend 1,000 rupees.  I guess we got the good driver.  Thank You!

Speaking of things to look out for, I will just share one more experience.  As we’ve mentioned several times, there are always beggars and people along the road trying to get you to buy from or donate to them.  One day as we’re stopped in traffic (something that happens regularly) a women approaches carrying a child that I thought looked to be 10-14 months old.  The child’s forearm and hand looked like it had been badly burned, like dipped in boiling oil or some other horrific thing.  The arm was charred black and bloody looking.  As I’m gasping in horror our driver explains that this is not real, but make-up.  What!  I couldn’t understand at the time how the child could be so calm and  not crying or screaming, I’m thinking of my own grandchildren and how they would be acting in that situation.  Things like this are something that I’m still coming to terms with on many levels.      

With that cheery note I will bid you all,

 Namaste.